Keithmas XIV, at the Rickshaw, 2023: Art Bergmann, the Pointed Sticks, Wait/Less, Rich Hope, La Chinga... and more!

Art Bergmann by bev davies, Dec. 16, 2023 not to be reused without permission

(With thanks to Rob Wright, Bev Davies, and - making her first appearance on Alienated, one Andy Scheffler; also thanks to Mo and the rest of the Keithmas team)

At his first-ever Keithmas, this past Saturday at the Rickshaw, Art Bergmann quipped, before playing “Confessin’ the Blues,” that he’d swapped the gender references in the lyrics (“mama” becomes “daddy”) because the original was “so fuckin’ sexist it’s sick.” 

Obviously some aspects of the Stones catalogue have become, as they say, problematic. To leave aside entirely the question of cultural appropriation, the sexual power dynamics in songs like “Under My Thumb” do not work well in the current landscape. Even worse is “Brown Sugar,” which adds a morally horrifying element of racist history, presented in a weirdly rollicking, good-time-rock-n’-roll format.

Hard to believe Little Richard once covered that latter tune, re-instating a line that Jagger himself would gloss over in live performances, about hearing the “scarred old slaver… whip the women just around midnight.” He even amended "whip" to "whup," adding to the horrors. (There are people who defend the song, but there's a reason it has drawn controversy). 

At a past Keithmas, staple co-headliners La Chinga lost points with some members of the audience by revitalizing that song, when even the Stones themselves have dropped it from recent sets. But considering the possibility that it might surface again this year, it was hard to get very worked up over “Confessin’ the Blues.” 

Originally written by black artists Jay McShann and Walter Brown,  it has a narrator macking somewhat desperately on a girl, posturing—“Baby don’t you want a man like me?”, which line apparently would later inspire Frank Zappa—while pleading (“if I can’t have you baby, I don’t want nobody else,”  which you’d imagine the singer might pitch at a different girl every week). It’s horny, it’s het, it’s very male, and for the women the singer targets, probably a bit tedious, but… sexist?

Merch table by Allan MacInnis; that's Nick handing me my losing raffle tickets!  

Still, if it makes Art happy to swap “Mama” for “Daddy,” to reverse the power dynamic and/or possibly queer the song, he should go right ahead. All I want for Christmas is for Art Bergmann to have a happy new year, y’know? (And I mean the whole year).

It wasn’t Art’s only poke at heteronormativity during the evening. Wearing lipstick and nail polish, the Vancouver punk veteran had also said of the silky feminine robe he wore that if Keith Richards would dress that way, too, “if he had the courage;” and later in the evening, during Rich Hope’s extended jam on “Midnight Rambler,” crept up behind Hope onstage, lay on his back at his feet, raised his legs in the air in an apparent offering.

Art and Rich, by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

Hope seemed momentarily a bit puzzled by what specific manner of debauchery Bergmann might have been inviting, but ended up placing his foot in Bergmann’s, uh, perineal area, with Bergmann laughing happily on the floor below him (he says just now on Facebook that he was being "the rapee." I guess in the absence of those other songs, "Midnight Rambler" becomes the most lyrically problematic tune of the night, and that Art's theatre was more deliberately, sneakily subversive than hilariously random; it's clever stuff). Hope may have contributed to the high spirits a bit, pouring for Art from the gigantic bottle of Jack Daniels that occupied center stage. 

Rich Hope: He reigns, he pours (by Allan MacInnis)

Most performers took a hit from that bottle, some more than one. At one point, near the end of the night, Hope was squatting on the stage margins right in front of me, selfsame bottle in hand, and, thinking of watching Shane McGowan pass whiskey into the audience at a Pogues show back in 1987, I was tempted to reach out—except whiskey mixes poorly with tongue cancer; I stuck to Phillips de-alcoholized Iota, happily now on tap at the Rickshaw, poorly advertised in a photo that Santa took of me with Mrs. Claus (don't ask, I have no idea, she just liked my Dead Bob shirt). 

Photo by the Santa in the lobby (Rodney Gitzel)

To be clear, it was delightful to see the 70-year-old Bergmann having such fun—and apparently abandoning his concerns over sexism by joining La Chinga in background vocals for a raucous, celebratory, unabashedly phallocentric “Honky Tonk Women,” later in the night. It is probably impossible to have a bacchanale that is totally politically correct, y’know? 

Becca Buick and Allie Sheldan of Wait/Less, by bev davies, not to be re-used without permission

If Bergmann easily won the prize for stage antics, Wait/Less bassist (and Little Destroyer frontperson) Allie Sheldan, having changed from her leathers (?) into fake furs and sparkly tights, came close for second place, sneering and grabbing at her crotch as she joined Hope for a Dionysian rip-through of “When the Whip Comes Down” at the evening’s ending. Also fun to see was Wait/Less vocalist Becca Buick proudly displaying the stuffed package in the front of her bright red pants, during Wait/Less’s mid-show main set, prior to launching into a swaggering “Emotional Rescue.”

Becca, Allie, and James (I think), by Allan MacInnis

Somewhat surprisingly, that was the most contemporary Stones song that we heard that night, unless you count deep-diving Mississippi-born bluesman Robert Connelly Farr’s  version of “Rolling Stone Blues,” which appears on Hackney Diamonds, but was originally written by Muddy Waters in 1950, adapting a still-earlier Delta blues song called “Catfish Blues”). I was sad that Farr only got to do two songs; I liked what I heard. By the end of the night, after a three hour musical orgy involving at least nine bands (JankyBungag appears not to have played), Farr’s contributions, and those of surf instrumentalist Joe Rotundo, had faded a bit in memory -- Rotundo and the Interstellar Riders kicked off the night with a cover of "Paint It Black," but that's about all I can tell you. Still, there was not a weak band on the bill, and Farr, with his deep, rich growl and sonorous guitar, is someone I’ll seek out again (he has an album release show in March). Leave them wanting more!

Joe Rotundo and the Interstellar Riders

Robert Connelly Farr by Allan MacInnis

As for period-appropriate costuming, with faded jeans, silky scarf and long blond hair, La Chinga vocalist Carl Spackler reminded me more of Robert Plant—perhaps as played by Wings Hauser –than he did his pseudonym’s namesake (Bill Murray’s character in Caddyshack). He looked like he’d time-travelled in from 1973 to lead covers of—what, was that “Turd on the Run” they started with? I was returning from accompanying veteran scene documenter Bev Davies to the bus stop, so I missed a bit, but I seem to recall hearing the lyric “I’ve lost a lot of love over you” blasting through the Rickshaw’s swinging doors, while proprietor Mo Tarmohamed mopped up a spilled beer on the stairs.  

Carl Spackler by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

For sure, La Chinga did “Bitch,” “Wild Horses,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Sway.” Nick Jones of the Pointed Sticks, who had last played Keithmas in 2017, had, a few bands earlier, invited the audience to really give it up for La Chinga and Rich Hope: “They do this every year,” he quipped, “and have to come up with new songs every time.”

The Pointed Sticks by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

The Sticks, by contrast, actually repeated one song from their 2017 set, “Mother’s Little Helper,” but I think Nick just has fun singing “What a drag it is getting old.”

Knowing that, in his capacity as a rock merchandiser, Jones has toured with the Stones and even been lent a hat by Keith Richards himself, I was keen to know where he’d got his cool tartan pants. Seeing one of my photos, my wife asked, “Are those pajama bottoms?”

Pointed Sticks by Allan MacInnis

Jones reply via email: “NO! Only [Pointed Sticks bassist] Tony Bardach is allowed to wear pajamas onstage. Which he did at the Fox one year. Besides, a bit tight for pajamas, no?”

Tony's solo bandcamp is here, by the way - check out "Bumped My  Noggin"! 

Nick happily posed for a few pics in the Rickshaw lobby with Bev, and we traded stories, me asking Jones if he knew that Rich Hope, at his other gig, used to cut the hair of the Plugz’ Charlie Quintana, when the latter lived in Vancouver, and Jones returning that Quintana had played on one of Tony “Balony” Walker’s albums, Treasure Town, which, it turns out, is at times pretty Stonesy. Walker, who had once filled in for Art on guitar at Richards on Richards, when Art returned to the stage after years of defeated retirement, back in 2009, was apparently bummed to not be performing this year; Keithmas organizers note that Walker should be well-prepped come 2024!

Colleen Rennison takes the stage by Allan MacInnis

Colleen Rennison by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

There were too many stellar takes on the Stones catalogue to do justice to all of them. Both Bergmann and Colleen Rennison offered different flavours of “No Expectations,” with Art bringing out the scorched emotional earth in the song, while Rennison read it more harmoniously, as if making peace with a sad situation.  To my embarrassment, I have only caught her twice; her self-presentation the other night was vastly more demure than the raunchy gusto she brought to the stage with GRRL Circus, a couple of years ago.  Rennison apparently contains multitudes, which is a superb quality for any performer (it was very odd passing her on the street the next day--not sure if she recognized me from Keithmas, but I recognized her).   

Elliot C. Way raises a glass, by Allan MacInnis

And while noting outstanding performances, one must also tip the hat to Keithmas veteran Elliot C. Way, who did a stellar take on “Sweet Virginia” (a divisive song, but it’s always been my favourite song off Exile on Main St).

Mary Ancheta by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

The most transcendent performance of the night, though, was ultimately by Rich Hope, who offered an extended mega-jam on “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” the spacy, drawn-out denouement of which prompted him to remark, some minutes after it was over, “Are you wondering if that song is still going? I fucking am! I’ll be ending that song in my dreams.” Particular credit should go to keyboardist Mary Ancheta – inexplicably decked-out in a furry Russian hat, which she kept on through both Bergmann and Hope’s sets, despite the considerable body heat warming the room— for evoking a stoned and expansive Ray Manzarek. Indeed, the song felt more like the Doors or Sri-Chinmoy-era Santana than the Stones. It was the climax, the veritable tantric orgasm, of the evening, even if it was not technically the last song (I believe that was "Happy").  

By special request: Billy Butcher of La Chinga with Art Bergmann, during "Honky Tonk Women," by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

Hope was in great spirits, saying something about how fun it was to “act like a bunch of jackasses and raise money for the food bank.” I’m told that, while the final count is not yet in, between the very reasonable admission price, raffle tickets, merch sales, and other donations, “at least $22,500” was raised.

That’s an impressive amount--I've never done anything simultaneously so frivolous and productive--but the most touching story of the night came from Wait/Less’s second guitarist, James Gamble, whose name was provided me after the fact by event-co-organizer Rob Wright, of the Vicious Cycles MC (a band who were not actually on the bill, but present in spirit, with their guitarist Nick manning the merch table, where you could buy a new 7” featuring Gamble released for the occasion.  While I bought my raffle tickets, Nick and I briefly chatted a bit about how Fergus of Emergency was on the first four Tranzmitors singles, including my favourite of theirs, “Look What You’re Doing to Me,” but had flown back across the pond before the first Tranzmitors LP came out. It was an itch I had wanted to scratch for awhile, but I didn’t get the chance at the Dead Bob show, where I last saw the Vicious Cycles play).

Rich Hope, Allie Sheldan, and Erik Neilsen by Andy Scheffler, not to be reused without permission

Who is the emcee? I dunno! ...but the photo is by Andy Scheffler

To get back to the story: just prior to Wait/Less launching into “Emotional Rescue,” Gamble took the mic to tell the assembled crowd about how he’d just flown in from attending his uncle Rick’s funeral, earlier that day. The Rolling Stones were uncle Rick’s favourite band of all time, Gamble explained: “I had to leave early to be here, but I know he would be so proud of me.”

James then raised a glass, poured from that same bountiful bottle of Jack on the stage.

Here’s to you, Uncle Rick. You’d have been proud indeed.

Note to Rickshaw noobs and regulars: Mo's three shows he is really looking forward to for the new year are Squid (in February), A Savage (in April) and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets (in May). He is also "planning a big weekend of shows this summer (likely in late June) to celebrate Rickshaw's 15th Anniversary" -- more deets to come. My tastes lean more to the Reverend Horton Heat (in March) and Korpiklaani (in April). Meantime, La Chinga has a big album release planned for February 23rd at the WISE Hall... more to come on Robert Connelly Farr... merry Christmas...

Angry Snowmans, Murray Acton, and NO FUN at Christmas: seasonal fun for weird old punks

Angry Snowmans at the Waldorf, Dec, 8, 2023. All photos but the David M selfie by Allan MacInnis, not to be reused without permission, unless you are in the photo, in which case, fill your boots

Being friends with David M. (founder and still frontman of NO FUN, the Beatles of Surrey) means that I have learned to appreciate a good Christmas-themed punk show. How can one not love (rude, funny) NO FUN originals like "Christmas is a Sad and Lonely Time," or their slightly altered seasonal covers, like the Subhumans' "Slave to My Dick" festively re-interpreted as "Slave to My Gifts"...?

But what are the odds that two distinct bands would have their own Christmas-themed version of that Vancouver punk classic? Check out "Slave to St. Nick," by Angry Snowmans, riffing on the same song. Fun, eh? (People in the dark about the Angry Snowmans' name are probably unaware that there is a punk band called Angry Samoans. The Samoans and the Snowmans have no other overlaps that I'm aware of; it's just another of the many Yuleish repurposings, or Christmasizations, if you will, of things punk that the Victoria-based Snowmans perpetrate).  

The lonely disco ball waits for the music to start while creating the illusion of snowfall (?). 

Despite a week-long cold, presumably caught at that Dead Bob show, I was able to do some productive "local-level" music journalism in the run up to the show last night. For instance, it was to my great pleasure that I established that not only does David M. (pictured below) know the music of the Angry Snowmans, but that Ty Stranglehold, singer of the Angry Snowmans, knows and is a "huge fan" of NO FUN at Christmas (so he tells me on Facebook; and for the record, I do think that NO FUN at Christmas is among the punkest of things that M. does, even though David M. will purportedly safety pin you if you call him a punk, and NO FUN's music is usually not very punklike at all. But songs like "Folk Christmas," their re-seasoning FEAR's "Fuck Christmas" add to the punk spirit, and originals like "The Turkey Song" are punk in all important regards except the musical one). 

I mean, it figures that Stranglehold and M. would have encountered each other, but I'm still pleased; I don't know if the connection has been officially made in public elsewise. Let it be done, now! A new fact of local music lore, unearthed and otherwise unremarked upon! 

First openers were called Stale

It is, in fact, one of two significant contributions I have made in the last year to the scholarship around NO FUN, the other being confirming a rumour (long heard and wondered at by David M) that Murray Action, of the Dayglo Abortions and Lummox (whose "Put the Cunt Back in Cuntry" was played as house music last night) used to cover NO FUN's "Mindless Aggression," one of their best-known, most-heard songs, since it appears on the esteemed Vancouver Complication, which is where Acton encountered it (again, he told me so on social media). This was actually in the days before the Dayglos, when Acton was helming a band whose name seems inconsistently given as the Sick Fucks or the Sickfucks, whom you can hear via Supreme Echo's essential All Your Ears Can Hear release.  "I still love that song to this day," Murray told me. "I love the first Vancouver Complication comp in it's entirety. That album had a great deal of influence on my late teens and more or less put me on this road to ruin that I travel to this day."

The Angry Snowmans sign my new copy of What We Do Is Festive

As an aside, note that you can get "Mindless Aggression" and others of NO FUN's greatest hits on the album NO FUN's Greatest Hits, which is cheapest to purchase in digital form on NO FUN's first bandcamp page, but can also be purchased on vinyl via the US label Atomic Werewolf. It is not cheap, let it be known, but it is being made, I believe, on a print-on-demand basis and sent from Europe or something. 

I have been hanging onto M's own sample copy until such a time as I could write about it.  In point of fact, many of my favourite NO FUN songs are not on it, because I tend to go for M's more obscure gestures, like "Ambivalence (Gets Me)," off Snivel. I do love two of the songs that are on it with special fervour, namely "To Hell with the Past" and "Paisley Brainbolts of the Mind," about the apocalyptic inner life of a passive-aggressive, drug-usin' hippie, but many of the other songs on this album, by virtue of being concert staples at NO FUN shows, have been heard more by me a bit more frequently than by your average casual consumer of things NO FUN, and I have come to feel about them the same way as a deep diver might feel, when seeing the Blue Oyster Cult, about "Burning For You." I love "Burning For You" but would rather hear almost any other song off the BOC's first five studio albums played in its place in concert or representing them on a comp; I know they WILL play it, and I will enjoy it, but deep divers kind of have to grin and bear such concessions to necessity. Similarly, I have loved all the songs on NO FUN's Greatest Hits at one point or other, but by virtue of having heard them vastly more than most people, I could list a dozen NO FUN songs that I would rather hear than "Mindless Aggression," "Ream Me Like You Mean It," and "Me & Warren Beatty (and Mick Jagger)" (great though these songs may be). Songs I like better and would better have on vinyl would include the non-COVID-themed original version of "Oh To Be on Heroin," "Can I Please Take the Drugs Now?," "Groovy Daddy" and the aforesaid "Ambivalence (Gets Me)," all off Snivel: "Not in Your Town," "Snog," "No Orchestra Required," and "Jah Seh (Veni, Vidi, Vici)," off 1894; "These Are the Names of the Folks I Hate," "The Communist Boys" and "Allez Vite Les Twist" off The New Switcheroo, and especially "The Awful Truth" off Ghost Paper Boy in Robin's Gay Trailer Park. That last is probably the most significant omission from the LP, since it remains on M's sets and he clearly likes it plenty still; it gets played live a lot more than "It Came from Heaven" (an important song for NO FUN, but not as good as "The Awful Truth") or a few other songs on the album. I would bet other NO FUN associates (Pete Campbell, David Dedrick, Kent Lindsay, or even the late great Lester Interest, were he available for comment) would have their own ideas about the songs they'd most like, what their own version of NO FUN's Greatest Hits might look like. Hell, for me, all of 1894 and Snivel would suffice (may they see vinyl release eventually). 

But the album isn't called "Allan's NO FUN Favourites." So to heck with me! The vinyl is impressively made, a labour of love, nice and thick, with a great cover photo, given a matte presentation, and with superior mastering compared to M's own 2015 digital version of the album. It also has a pleasing, unique smell, which I would go re-experience now that I might describe it, except I'm still a bit plugged up with this cold (but yes, I sometimes sniff my records, especially new ones, which habit I got into thanks to the unique stink of the ink on Crass Records, back in the day; I'm not sure if they still smell the same, but like the smell of the shitwater leaking down from the "old Cobalt" ceiling, it is a smell that, while not in itself normally what you would call "a good smell," has very pleasant associations for me. Note that there is nothing unpleasant about the smell of NO FUN's Greatest Hits. It does not smell like shitwater, even shitwater I grew fond of). 

As for sonic matters, I'm not an audiophile, don't have audiophile equipment, and can offer no in-depth observations about the quality of these recordings, but I have now listened to the album from start to finish and can honestly report that it sounds great to me, given the limitations of my ears, brain, and stereo equipment. I am going to order a copy of it for myself as my Christmas gift to M... it's gonna cost something like $80 Cdn with the shipping, but I love the idea of buying something for Christmas, the act of doing which is the gift, while the ownership remains with me. And then I can give him his own copy back! Merry Christmas!

Anyhow, while M. remained un-Waldorfed last night, this added level of knowledge (that Ty Stranglehold is also a NO FUN fan) and a slight improvement in my cold (combined with six reassuringly negative COVID tests) made it essential that I get out to see the show myself. I wore a mask, and avoided getting near Wendy (who needs no further illness at the moment), save to offer her an extra hoodie that I'd packed (she was complaining on Facebook that she was cold, but by the time I showed up, hoodie in hand, had solved that problem, apparently borrowing some fake furs; she declined my offer). To think, when I first saw the announcement of the show, it was Night Court I was keen to see! 

An Angry Snowman watches Paul is Dead

But that was before I realized that the Snowmans were fronted by Ty Stranglehold, whom I have some history with; we were writing about the Subhumans at the same time, at one point, and Chris Walter hilariously once mis-identified me at a show and inscribed a book that I was buying to Ty (which I then made him cross out and fix; it prompted some bemused conversation between Ty and myself, the next time I ran into him at the Cobalt: "We don't even look alike," Stranglehold observed, "except that we're both white and large.")

Sadly, the night proved a bit too much for me, in my depleted state. I was a bit worn out by the two opening acts, both offering different flavours of west coast punk, with Stale reminding me of muscular grunge served with a generous sprinkling of Afghan Whigs, and Paul is Dead ("It's Paul McCartney, dude, fuckin' Google it") reminding me more of South California punk by way of Grant Hart. Or something like that, I dunno. They were both decent bands, just more than I needed, and not quite as playful as either the Snowmans or Night Court (who ended their set on a cover of ABBA's "S.O.S.," as is heard on Humans; I shot some vid of their originals, here. I love that they have a bat-themed song that seems to intersect with the song David and I wrote together, but they did not play it last night, presumably because they want me to come see them again sometime; I guess I shall!). 

Thanks to the un-announced addition of a fourth band, there was no way I would end up seeing the whole Angry Snowmans set, which indeed I did not, leaving, exhausted but happily satiated, after "Ebenezer Uber Alles," which I guess they played around 11:30, given that I got back to Metrotown after midnight. I would much have preferred the advertised three-band bill, or even just two bands, but... well, whatever. I guess the priority was to sell alcohol for as long as possible. And while I enjoyed the Snowmans immensely, the somewhat unruly crowd was shouting down Ty's between-song patter ("Shut up and play a song!"), which (the patter, not the shouting) I would actually have liked to hear more of. They seemed more interested in moshing enthusiastically to the band's estimable covers, like they couldn't have cared less about the inherent wit of the lyrics or the various seasonal alterations. Ah well. The high points, for me, were "Wrecked XMas" (a hilarious riff on X's "Los Angeles," off What We Do Is Festive, which the band actually had vintage vinyl of) and a nod to Victoria's own Nomeansno, "Eight Deer One Sleigh on One Run," which they played at full throttle and punctuated at the mid-song break with a complete performance of their very silly rewrite of Minor Threat's "Seeing Red." The band was tighter and faster than I thought they would be, based on various videos I had perused on Youtube, which don't entirely capture how solid they are live and in person. They're actually an estimable punk cover band; the wit is just a star atop the tree. By the way, Ty confirms that their material is all cover tunes; there were some songs didn't recognize, but that's just because they dive even deeper into punk than I do. If we look at my vid from last night, obviously "Bright Lights" is the Clash's "White Riot," but I had no idea that "Fruitcakes" was Agent Orange's "Bloodstains."

You have a few chances to see Angry Snowmans on the island this seasn -- in Nanaimo, tonight, and on December 16th in Victoria; go see NO FUN at Christmas on December 22nd at the Princeton. May there come a day when Ty Stranglehold, Murray Acton, and David M. share a stage somewhere! A consummation devoutly to be wished. 

I have nothing further to say, but here is a whole whack of photographs that I took last night. I won't be blogging all that much between now and Christmas -- I have other trees to decorate. Maybe I'll see you at Keithmas or something? (But I'm gonna let myself off the hook for reporting about it; excited to see what Art Bergmann will do, but I'm going as a concert attendee, not as a writer, if I can help it). Or perhaps we'll cross paths at the Princeton on December 22nd, for NO FUN at Christmas? Either way... Merry Christmas!

Of Blu-ray Bronzing, The Getaway, Roger Donaldson, and... Angry Snowmans?

To pick a slightly arbitrary starting point for this weekly update: we were in the mood for a nautical mutiny film, so I tried showing my wife the 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty. She doesn't enjoy classics as much as I do, and the ones she does gravitate towards are the ones that have a naturalistic, contemporary feel to the dialogue. She enjoyed Rebel Without a Cause, enjoyed Sunset Boulevard. But she wasn't really liking Mutiny, which, great as it is, has that "old movie delivery," where the actors are very visibly actors reading lines in front of a camera; she can't lose herself in the illusion of it, just sits there on the outside of it and eventually falls asleep.   

Such was the case the other night. When I noticed her starting to droop, I turned the vid off and suggested that we go to bed, and start over the next night with the more recent version -- the one with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, which I hadn't seen in some time. She went for it. 

We loved it. 

This got me on a brief Roger Donaldson kick. I had paid no attention to his cinema, wasn't really aware of him as a filmmaker until The Bounty, which is a surprisingly good-looking, subtle film, with a screenplay by Robert Bolt (best known for A Man for All Seasons but also noteworthy for The Mission and a couple of David Lean films, including a co-write on Lawrence of Arabia; The Bounty began life as a Lean project, we learn). Rather than make a cartoon villain out of Bligh -- great as Laughton is, he's a cartoon character for the first half of the earlier film, only attaining some richness after the mutiny takes place -- the film gives a fairly balanced portrait. It motivates Christian and the men quite amply, but without needing to make a villain of anyone; instead, the villain is a much more complex thing, involving class and work and hierarchy and civilization itself. What warm-blooded man, offered the chance to live in a tropical paradise in a state of natural freedom (very much represented by the Tahitians in the film, who are viewed through rose-coloured glasses), would choose instead to set to sea for a year to bring breadfruit across the world, to feed slaves at a plantation in Jamaica, for what meager wage was on offer? Only someone motivated by the rewards of position -- a ship's captain, maybe wanting to prove himself; or perhaps the truly loyal followers of the man, the stiff-necked social climbers aware of the position they've attained and craving more (Daniel Day Lewis inhabits this role quite nicely in the Donaldson film). The sailors, unmoved by such considerations, though not in themselves dishonorable, taste a different life in Tahiti, and crave it. You can't blame them, but you also can't blame Bligh. It's a nicely nuanced film, worthy of revisiting.

...So who the heck is Roger Donaldson? I had really enjoyed another Laughton update he did, No Way Out, the Kevin Costner/ Gene Hackman/ Sean Young/ Will Patton/ CHRIS DESJARDINS cold war spy thriller. It's very crisp, very entertaining, and pays interesting homage to the film it remakes, The Big Clock, in that it has the basic plot of that movie (a man investigates a murder that his boss was involved in, but has to avoid his own role being uncovered) but differs dramatically on almost all other counts. It's a great little thriller but even moreso if you're a Flesh Eaters fan; Chris D. is really great in it (though the real star of the show is Will Patton, sinking his teeth into a really juicy character part). 

Anyhow, scanning the IMDB for Donaldson, I saw that he had directed a couple of other films I enjoyed (the Bay-of-Pigs-themed Thirteen Days and his New Zealand domestic drama Smash Palace, which I saw as a kid on pay-TV, I think; it was the early indy success that had kickstarted his Hollywood career, his next theatrical feature being The Bounty). But among his films, there were also a couple that I thought were steaming piles of cinematic shit, with the worst probably being Species, an uninspired, kinda misogynist Alien knockoff that tries to situate the alien as a sexually empowered female on the dating scene (she takes human form). I had rolled my eyes at it in the theatre, but had actually snagged it on the cheap on blu-ray not long ago to see if the years had been kind to it. Now I was motivated to see it: how can a filmmaker capable of something as mature, beautiful, and thoughtful as The Bounty churn out a piece of crap like Species? Did it have any redeeming features that I'd failed to notice when I saw it first run?  

The short answer is no, but there are a few moments (the kid with the tongue!) that made me sit up and smile, and it sometimes fun to watch the talented cast struggling with the half-hearted cheese in the screenplay. Forest Whitaker acquits himself well, as does Alfred Molina; there's an early role for Michelle Williams, too (her third film role, age 15). Ben Kingsley knows he's slumming and gives one of his stiffest performances ever, while Michael Madsen -- what can one say? Only Tarantino has used him well, apparently understanding his old-fashioned-tough guy/ Robert Mitchum qualities and knowing how to exploit them by putting the right kinds of lines in his mouth. He's reasonably well-cast in species, in fact, playing a gun-for-hire who cleans up government messes, and he delivers exactly what can be expected from the role, but therein lies the rub: expectations on Species seem to have been low all-round (even HR Giger's creature designs aren't that impressive). Madsen does get the single witty line in the screenplay, about how Kingsley's character doesn't get out much. Otherwise, the most curious aspect of revisiting the film was the extreme contrast between the lush, Lean-like cinematographic splendor of The Bounty -- it's gorgeous to behold -- and the lame b-movie assembly of Species. The same filmmaker, you say?

I blame John Armstrong for what comes next: I re-watched The Getaway remake, also a Roger  Donaldson Hollywood job, because Armstrong had told me that the Al Lettieri role (from the Peckinpah movie) was played by Joe Spinell. Who doesn't love Joe Spinell? And how perfect it would be, to have him subbed in for Al Lettieri?

Spinell

Lettieri

Imagine my disappointment to discover that Joe Spinell was five years in the ground when this movie was made, and that the actual role of Rudy was played by... 

Yep: Michael Madsen in a mullet! He's pretty good in the film -- it's a part that suits him, and he gets to have some fun with being a sleazy but understandable tough. His scenes with Jennifer Tilly (repping Sally Struthers) have some spark to them and his haircut is consistently entertaining to wince at, so it's really quite unfair that I spent every single scene he's in trying to imagine Joe Spinell in his role. Spinell> Madsen, as far as character actors go, but then, Jennifer Tilly>Sally Struthers... you can't but sit there making comparisons, to make the movie more entertaining, because, y'know, it's a story you've seen told better before (The Getaway is probably my favourite Peckinpah film, in fact). Baldwin and Basinger have nothing on McQueen and McGraw, and Donaldson disappointingly ignores the very dark denouement of Jim Thompson's novel to just offer a straight-up imitation of the earlier film, with only a few differences early on. Which is a bad idea; if you're going to remake a film by a master, you want to do something different with it, like the obvious move of filming the (downbeat, bleak, and horrifying) actual ending of the novel, where Doc and Carol escape to a Mexican town that is a pay-to-enter hideaway for bad people, which Tarantino riffs on in From Dusk Til Dawn, even giving it the same name, El Rey. There they fall to mistrust and scheming and seem poised to kill each other at any moment. It's about as grim as Jim Thompson gets -- and he can get pretty grim!

This is a far cry from the romantic happy endings both the film adaptations offer, with Slim Pickens and Richard Farnsworth, respectively, gleefully helping the couple on the run escape the claws of justice. I love the Pickens scene, but Farnsworth is also great, so much so I couldn't fairly say which one I preferred; I wanted to compare the Donaldson ending with the original, so I dug out my copy of the Peckinpah blu-ray, put it into the player and...

It wouldn't load. Examining the disc, which I'd bought new at a HMV on Robson around 2010 or 2011, I could see that it was weirdly discoloured. This is my first discovery of a form of disc rot called bronzing -- a sort of brown halo creeping in from the outer edges of the disc. While environmental factors CAN be an issue -- if your discs are stored in a damp/ humid environment, for instance, which mine are not -- the real issue is that chemicals in the disc can degrade over time. Other than a copy of The Yakuza on DVD, I've been very lucky when it comes to disc rot, but how upsetting to know that this film -- which I probably paid close to $30 for, and only watched once or twice -- had simply degraded over time on the shelf to the point of being completely unplayable. Not even the menu will load! 

I've written Warner Brothers, and somewhat to my surprise, am being told that a replacement disc is possible (I've explained that I have no receipt to show them; why would I, when the disc was purchased ten years ago and worked fine at the time?). It might take a few weeks. I guess Peckinpah can wait awhile... 

Anyhow, I now want to see a few other Roger Donaldson films. I might start with an early New Zealand offering of his, which happens to be on Tubi -- Sleeping Dogs. I'm being told The Bank Job is a decent heist thriller, as well, but I don't have it around. But before I get to any of that...

...I'm going back to bed. I caught some sort of cold at the Dead Bob show, it seems. Which is how I happen to be watching so many movies, of a sudden - I've had three sick days this week, and am pleased to have another one stretching before me today, as my cough turns productive. Who wants to be coughin' up frogs at work?

By the way, I did review the Dead Bob show -- but I donated it to Germany's Ox Fanzine. It will do more good in Germany than it would here. Fantastic band, though. 

Oh, by the way, Night Court (whom I still haven't seen) opens for (the Buzzcocks-meet-the-Jam Ontario band) Tommy and the Commies tonight at the Black Lab, and tomorrow for (festive punk humourists) the Angry Snowmans at the Waldorf. I'd thought of doing both shows, but I feel pretty shitey at the moment, and I wouldn't want to spread my illness to others; I think I might give it one more night, and hopefully be recovered enough for the Snowmans gig. They have the perfect bandname: if you don't get it, you probably won't get them, either!